[tmatej]
To ja.
Poosebljen American Dream, lusna zgodba, Winters pa pristen, klasicen "company town".
Vse v enem. :)

Ne vem no. Gledam naokrog in se mi vedno bolj zdi, da si ti to opisal precej počez in po domače.
- Wikipedia v opisu Wintersa sploh ne omenja imena Mariani. To pomeni, da le niso lastniki ali glavni gospodarji mesteca.
- Nikjer nisem našel informacije, da bi se plantažnik Mariani moral umakniti pred razvojem in širjenjem univerze Stanford.
- Leland Stanford je imel veliko farmo, na kateri je pred koncem 19. stoletja odprl univerzo. Ta še zdaj vključuje raziskovalno farmo.
en.wikipedia.org/wik...University
- Je bil stari Mariani en sam ali je bilo več njih? Vse kaže, da sta bila čisto na začetku vsaj dva - z Visa in ne s Korčule, potem pa je za njima postopoma prišla širša rodbina oz. klan. Nekaj člankov o Vis-kalifornijskih Marianijih je na tem obsežnem seznamu:
www.croatia.org/crow...rd2007.htm

Born on the island of Vis off the Croatian coast, Mr. Mariani was the son of Lukra Bozanich Mariani and Jack Mariani. Jack Mariani came to Santa Clara Valley with his brother, Paul, as a penniless immigrant before World War I. He returned to Croatia and brought his family to America in 1927.
www.mercurynews.com/...89-farmer/

Being head of a family-owned business means more to Mark Mariani than just having a portrait of his grandfather hanging in the lobby of his dried fruit packing plant. Mariani, headquartered in San Jose, California, is an old company with a modern approach in food production. It was founded in 1906 by Paul Mariani, and immigrant from the Island of Vis, Dalmatia, Croatia who staked our four acres in the rich Santa Clara Valley to start his first orchard. His son, Paul Jr., introduced the company’s first dried fruits in 1947. He was the first to offer dried fruits in a clear package.
www.croatia.org/crow...ARIANI.htm

The Mariani family got their start in California agriculture in the early 1900s. The original immigrants came from Croatia. They bought farms in the Santa Clara Valley, where they farmed fruit and nuts. As developers bought up farm land, the family progressively moved closer to Central California, eventually landing in Winters.
www.sacbee.com/food-...47299.html

En poganjek klana vztraja na obrobju Silicijeve doline.

Farther south, in the gentle hills east of Morgan Hill, 28 acres of cherries — Rainier, Bing and Van — are in full bloom. The owner, Andy Mariani, maintains not just one of Santa Clara County’s largest surviving orchards, but also one of the largest collections of stone fruit varieties on the West Coast. His grandfather, Joseph Mariani, emigrated to the valley from Europe in the 1930s, then purchased the 30-acre Mariani Orchards (1615 Half Road, Morgan Hill) in 1957.
Andy Mariani, named “Cherry Man of the Year” in 2009 by the California Cherry Growers Foundation, is regarded as a highly innovative orchardist. During summer months, he hosts fruit tastings and “harvest walks.”
www.mercurynews.com/...-our-past/

It was 52 years ago when the post-War World II building boom forced Mariani’s parents – Joseph and Similia Mariani – to sell their Cupertino farm, located just a stone fruit’s throw from today’s headquarters of high-tech giant Apple Computer Inc. “In the mid-1950s, there was a lot of development in the Cupertino area. Farmers sold out for $10,000 an acre.”
Originally, Mariani had different career aspirations. After receiving a political science degree from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and a master’s in public administration from the University of Southern California (op.pob.: diploma FDV + magisterij FU?), Mariani worked a year as assistant city manager for the city of Saratoga. He soon realized he preferred driving tractors to pushing papers.
caff.org/wp-content/...screen.pdf

Med plantažniki v dolini Santa Clara in širše je kar veliko "naških" priimkov, ki nosijo v srcu jugoslovansko identiteto, čeprav leta 1911, ko so se njihovi predniki preselili čez ocean Jugoslavije sploh še ni bilo. :-)

In all started in 1911 when newlweds Matt and Mary Novakovich took the plunge and immigrated from Yugoslavia to Sonora in California’s Gold Country. The in 1925 they bought the Saratoga land in an action and settled in the white Queen Anne farmhouse built in 1890.
novakovichorchards.b...ogspot.si/

Andy Mariani is part of the extended Mariani family who have been central to the fruit industry in the Santa Clara Valley.
The Van Dyke family established their orchard operation in 1921 and have been farming for 5 generations. Betty Mardesich Van Dyke grew up in Cupertino with Andy Mariani and Charlie Olson.
In 1958, George Rajkovich and his brother Martin purchased 85 acres in Hollister, adding to their their landholdings over the years.
fortheloveofapricots...-families/

Pa še sanjska zgodba o vinarju Grgiću, ki je bil čisto reven pastirček, potem so mu komunisti vse pobrali, na kar je šel študirat na fakulteto. You can't make this shit up. :-)

He herded sheep as a child, scraped together an eighth-grade education, and then lost everything when Communists took over his town in the aftermath of World War II.
Miljenko Grgic, an Eastern Bloc kid with an American dream. It started when he was studying agricultural science in Zagreb, and one of his professors came back from a sabbatical to California.
www.pri.org/stories/...wine-world